Solitude is my Fav!

The Imperial City for a start. The docks with the pirates stationed outside of their ship.
There were also a lot of caves infested with pirates, and they actually LOOKED like pirates with their cutlasses.
You also had that quest that put you out at sea, stranded on a pirate ship, which was one of the best quests ever.
And then you had Anvil with its large dock, also a ship with UNDEAD pirates. 0:

I liked Solitude but expected it to be much much bigger to be honest. Whiterun is nice as well, but I never blown away like I was in Morrowind. They simply felt too small. But I feel Skyrim more then makes up for this aspect with the breathtaking wilderness and small settlements. It feels like the rugged north, just as it should.

It does look aesthetically pleasing but the graphics are still outdated technically.

Hmmm weird how everyone but the OP likes these tiny cities...Whiterun, Riften, Solitude and I think Windhelm are my only most liked cities of the game. the others are just...soooo small and boring...
It's hard selling all my crap when theres not enough people to buy it!
Thats what I liked about Oblivion/Morrowind. Each city was very large and had tons of people to buy stuff and sell stuff to and from.
Oh well

I've been to Whiterun, Riften and Markarth, and I think that the artists did an outstanding job with those. My only complaints are when I heard about the major cities, I envisioned major cities. Something from Arena or Daggerfall. The "major" cities in Skyrim seem tiny and devoid of life. Whatever happened to that claim that they "combined armor pieces so that they could have more NPCs on the screen at once?" I would think that the cities would be a great time to have more NPCs on the screen at once.

I'm running around Riften trying to find some place to buy/sell potions, and eventually did. But it got me thinking of the older games, where there would be 10 different types of stores, and typically more than 1 of each type in every major city. Not to mention the taverns, guild houses and temples. In Riften, there's a smith, an alchemist, a general store, a...., a......, is that it? In a major city? And like 4 houses for the city's population to live in? In a major city? When I first got in there, I was honestly wondering if I was in Riften, or a little town next to Riften.

I'm thinking that TES:VI will have nothing but a Wallmart in each major city, and that's it. Tavern in the front, sell everything else in the back.

I really like the game so far. I've run into lots of unique and cool out-of-the-blue quests just wandering around the wilderness. However, the cities have been a huge disappointment for me. Where is everyone? Skyrim's total population has to be hovering around 50 people.

yeh wait another 5 years???

Not enough stores.

and 500 respawning bandits outside ...

It's the cost of having a small world that's hand-crafted. We could have a larger, procedurally generated, generic world. But then people would be complaining about everything being the same.

I like all the ones I have found so far, they do seem Nord sized and they fit the setting well. Part of me does wish for some more urban place though, I have not found them all yet.

I love the cities in this game. Each one is very uniqe and they are all pretty large in scale.

Yes, you're only one.

Unlikely to happen. Will be same size, just with better gfx.

I haven't seen them all yet, but of the four or five I've visited I have to say I'm disappointed. The tiny populations worked in Fallout (for obvious reasons), but it's not feeling right in this world. I recently played Daggerfall to get a feel for Skyrim, and I really miss the cities in that game.

I get it ... people want "substantial" NPCs who do more than walk around and maybe that's the reason we now have fewer, but more complex, people, but just once I'd love to visit a city with three or four blacksmiths, several general stores, something that feels more like a city than a settlement. Yeah, the cities look great, but they creep me out by giving me the feeling of ghost towns.

Robot like semi-generated towns are better of course.

I've only been so far to Whiterun, Solitude and Morthal and I love them all! They are beautiful.

As bad as the casinos in FO:NV

Well, guys, now you know why Skyrim is under 6GB. Small villages, a decent amount of low rez textures(512x512) without too much variety and "streamlined" coding. I remember when the pc specs came out and many were wondering why the game was under 6GB, Pete Hines said something about the game using compression technique that made it look smaller but in reality it has more. After playing Skyrim and even though it has been fun, I doubt that Skyrin has more than 6GB. LOTRO DX11 high-rez version has about 14GB. When I played it I notice that every province had their own unique look(furniture, landscape, animation, etc.) and even though the textures aren't high rez as fps games it does look amazing in 3rd person and sometimes in fps. The variety of textures is much more noticeable too. When you're traveling you immediately feel that you're in another kingdom. When I saw Rivendell I couldn't believe my eyes.

When I saw Riverwood I was amazed how small it was. A mansion can easily take the whole space. I can't wait for the modding community start rolling those nice detailed villages/cities like Better Cities mod for Oblivion. There's no question that in no time we'll see mods like Riverwood Expanded.

WTB house in riverwood.

I don't like Markarth though. Trying to kill me and all. :C
Every major city is amazing.

I have been thinking the whole time that the insides are small and cramped with almost no people. Personally I think Vivec in Morrowind was bigger and more spectacular even with old graphics. On top of that the games tv ads showed the towns booming with population in a huge way, I don't wanna kill many npcs now due to being afraid that there r so few that I will inevitably kill quest hovers or people critical for quests

Yeah, Vivec was one of the biggest areas in Morrowind.

They are complex but smaller. I'd have likes them to be bigger but I assume mods will fix this.